Love is Survival

Falling in love. Is it chemistry? is it magic? Is it both?

The smoke filled room of The Goal Post vibrated with loud country music and drunken mating-dance shouting.  He hated it.  His friend kept telling him he needed to get out... but here?

 

Pheromones floated in the smoke like ashes after a fire.  He was so horny he could taste it in the back of his throat.  It was vile.  Or was that the watered down beer?

 

She sat across the dance floor.  Her white blouse just tight enough to put strain on two buttons.  Her hair was long, full and naturally curly.  Khaki slacks hugged her sweet cheeks when she stood up.  He’d noticed she stood only to go to the bathroom with her girl friends.  She looked like she felt the same way about the place as he.

 

Minutes before he had no courage, no motivation, just beer slowing his thinking and threatening to ruin his evening even worse.  Now he thought... 

‘This is it.  I’ve got to not let this one go.’

 

She saw him coming and looked away.  He sat down in an empty chair near by.  

“Want to dance?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

“Like the music?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”  Long pause.  Then fate gave them a slow dance.

He reached out and gently took her hand and stood.  She followed onto the dance floor.  

 

They each thought, ‘What the hell am I doing!!’  

He pulled her close and spoke over the noise.

“A friend brought me here.”

“My friends brought me too.”

Inside, his heart racing, his friend and the beer forgotten, he mustered up courage.  He slid his hand down her back slowly as she hugged his neck.  

 

“I’m married, but getting a divorce.”

“I am too, and want to be.”

It was a conversation killer.  But they were hooked.  

 

For almost two days he didn’t call.  He felt he was too obsessed.  He was scared.  

 

Thirty years later their sixth grandchild was being born and he drove by the place.  The Goal Post looked to have been a vacant lot for years.  He wondered how many other families started there.

 

_____________________________

 

Babies birthed into this cold, hostile world are unable to feed, clothe, fight, see, or comprehend their environment.  Their mother is left drained of iron and energy.  Survival of the species demanded the development of a process, a procedure, a path that could ensure survival.  A mate to aid when needed.

 

After millions of years, we’ve come to call this process LOVE.  

 

We confuse it with lust.  Our bodies produce copious amounts of dopamine to stimulate pleasure centers when we find ourselves otherwise inextricably drawn to another.  It makes us feel happiness.  We know we are contributing.  We are doing what our bodies demand and what society needs.

 

Survival needs love.  Love is survival.

 

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

WOW. The story was vivid and different than what I normally read from you. It would have been solid - yet I think if you had just ended at the end of the story I may have been disappointed because I have come to expect a certain amount of depth from you....and yet, you SERIOUSLY delivered with the rest of the piece. Well done. Formidable writing - I am not disappointed.

[Cold Coffee Magazine]

Another awesome write by my good friend Papa ED.
Well done. I'm glad to see you've continued to find time to write despite the pressing issue at home. Your an example to us all.

Dave